Florida Backs Off on 'Ridicule' Charges

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Florida Backs Off on 'Ridicule' Charges

The state of Florida has decided not to pursue charges after local authorities snared two cybernerds under a seldom-invoked 1940s-era state law that forbids the unsigned publication of materials subjecting someone else to ridicule, then invoked a '90s-era anti-street-gang statute to arrest them.

On 19 May, Citrus County sheriff's deputies dusted off a 1945 criminal defamation law to charge Ryan Vella and Christopher Cohen, both 19, with subjecting their band teacher to anonymous ridicule. Rather than letting the online harassment slide as a misdemeanor, the cops then dragged out the state's anti-gang law, which allowed them to take the two men into custody under third-degree felony charges.

The arrests stemmed from complaints about a Web site that Vella and Cohen allegedly posted using Vella's home computer. According to a police report, the site said that a local high school teacher and student were homosexual, listed their email and phone numbers, and electronically intoned that the teacher "will die."

The site also allegedly showed the 12th-grade student's traditionally saccharine prom-date photo - except that the teacher's head was superimposed over the girl's face and a banner welcoming viewers to his "homosexual life" was slapped on top.

The two were released on bail - US$9,000 for Vella, $4,000 for Cohen - shortly after their arrests.

"Apparently calling someone a homosexual is the worst thing you can possibly do in Citrus County," said Robyn Blumner, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "When the students' parents saw the site, they immediately called in the cavalry."

Blumner also noted that the charges violated the pair's First Amendment rights. "Slapping them with criminal defamation charges is completely unconstitutional," she said. "They have a right to publish material as obnoxious or insulting as they want. The appropriate remedy is a civil libel suit by the injured parties."

In fact, after reviewing the charges, Chief Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway announced Friday that although it was "clear that the defendants did violate the 1945 anonymous ridicule statute," the state would not pursue the case.

According to Ridgway's statement, Blumner is right: The Florida law is apparently unconstitutional in that it would prohibit anonymous "publication of information about anyone, including public officials, which 'tends' to hold them up to ridicule, even if the statements were true."

Apart from being obnoxious and bigoted, another of Vella and Cohen's mistakes was apparently in the name they gave themselves - the "Wrathlords" - and not because it's straight out of Dungeons and Dragons. In Florida legal parlance, a gang is defined as "a formal or informal, ongoing organization, association, or group that has as one of its primary activities the commission of criminal or delinquent acts, and consists of three or more persons who have a common name."

As founders of the Wrathlords, which included three other current and former Lecanto High School students, Vella and Cohen were apparently unable to give up their fixation with a band teacher whom they detested. Expressing that hatred - in an earlier instance, one gang member allegedly cut the teacher's brake lines - was apparently the group's raison d'être.

Constitutionality of the ridicule statute aside, observers say making the gang charges stick would probably have proved impossible. "I guess they technically fit the definition of a gang," said Investigator Wayne Hom of the San Francisco Police Department's gang task force, "but good luck trying to prove it."